This is a cross-post by John Wall In Summer 2017 Jeremy Corbyn was riding high after a better than expected election performance largely silenced his critics. He basked in the adulation at Glastonbury and predicted being in Downing Street by Christmas and cancelling the Trident replacement. A second election in 2017 may have been his best chance as the polls have subsequently stagnated but, in terms of who’d make the best PM, his ratings are below both the diminished May and Don’t Know. He’s been found out, when his far-left ideology encountered the real world, such as over Salisbury and Syria it’s been found wanting, and his past, spent in…

This is a guest post by Eve Garrard There’s a letter in yesterday’s Guardian, signed by Noam Chomsky, Ken Loach, and other luminaries, objecting to media coverage of charges that the Labour Party is institutionally antisemitic. The signatories to the letter make the following claims: “It is of course entirely appropriate and necessary for our major news outlets to report on the horrors of antisemitism, but wrong to present it as an issue specific to the Labour party. In covering the allegations that Labour is now “institutionally antisemitic”, there have been inaccuracies, clear distortions and revealing omissions across our most popular media platforms. We believe that significant parts of the…

Damian Reilly writes at The Spectator: It is deeply weird that Jeremy Corbyn will not condemn Russia for carrying out a chemical weapons attack on British soil. Actually, it’s beyond weird. It’s astonishing. I disagree. From everything I know about Corbyn, it is not at all weird. What seems weird to me is that so many of his supporters are apparently undisturbed by this. At PMQs this week, after Theresa May named the two Russian agents that British intelligence is certain carried out the attack, Corbyn spoke only of bringing “those responsible” to justice. His sole direct criticism of Russia, in fact, was merely “for its failure to cooperate with…

Momentum’s “The World Transformed” conference in Liverpool later this month will be an ugly assembly. Have a look at Franco Berardi, for example. The Italian Marxist is billed as a “writer and theorist of contemporary media, culture and society, working mainly around the aesthetics of the contemporary psychosphere” at the “No Pasaran: International Antifascism” session. The Nazis are on the march again, Berardi will have you know. But last year his stark warning was rejected in Germany: In a one-hour performance called “Auschwitz on the Beach,” planned for Thursday at the Documenta in Kassel, Italian author Franco “Bifo” Berardi accuses Europeans of setting up “concentration camps” on its own territory…

Platform sharing has long been a key test for many British left wingers. Take Labour’s John McDonnell, for example. During the EU referendum campaign in 2016, he considered Tory Remainers beyond the pale: Sharing a platform with them discredits us. It demotivates the very people we are trying to mobilise. Mr McDonnell also claims to be concerned about antisemitism in his party. Here he is this summer: “None of us fail to appreciate the… way this has upset people including ourselves. It’s really shaken us to the core really. But we’ll resolve it, we’ve got to. “Members of the Jewish community are really suffering out there,” McDonnell added. “We’ve got…

Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitic record has been under scrutiny for several weeks now, and rightly so. But let’s not forget other issues which are important, starting with our own national security. He should never be entrusted with the security of the United Kingdom. It would be seriously endangered. Look back to early 2015. Islamic State was on the march. No wonder – its strength and confidence had been boosted by a big influx of foreign fighters from Europe. They included Britain’s very own “Jihadi John”, who began his beheading spree in 2014. Those fighters were a top priority for Western intelligence services, in large part because there were fears they could…

Let’s cheer up poor old Jeremy Corbyn. On another tough day, he’s had a new endorsement! From none other than the notorious racist and former KKK leader David Duke. Eyeing wicked “Jewish power” plots, Duke says Corbyn stands out on the left and in his party: So the biggest issue of all, whether they raise somebody up to honour status, like Nelson Mandela, or, for that matter, a Bernie Sanders, or a leftist like Hillary Clinton, is whether or not they abide not only the state of Israel, they all do that, it seems like even the Labour party does in a sense defend Israel half the time, but they…

The typical response to those Labour NEC election results from more moderate Corbyn supporters is to point out that many Labour members got their votes in before news of Willsman’s rant was widely reported. Clearly some Labour members were firmly JC8 but not JC9* – but just how many of the 70,000 or so who voted for him did so in ignorance of his views? I thought it would be interesting to put those discussing this issue on Twitter into different categories in an attempt to get a better sense of Labour supporters’ thoughts on the Willsman issue. What evidence is there that most of those who voted for him…

It is easy to see why Andrew Murray has been welcomed to Jeremy Corbyn’s inner circle. He is a fanatical Israel hater. Consider a scene from London in July 2006, when Murray, Corbyn, far left agitators and Islamists marched to protest against Israel’s bid to defend itself against Hezbollah. Excited, Murray reads a message from Hezbollah to a cheering crowd. It is addressed to “our friends from around the world” from the “freedom fighters of Hezbollah”. Unity! Listen for yourself. Explicit support for Hezbollah was right out in the open at this demonstration. The poor old Socialist Party was somewhat disgruntled: However, left-wing leading members of the Stop the War…

This is a guest post by @TimAllon I found myself caught off-guard by the recent revelation that Jeremy Corbyn had disparaged “Zionists” as not understanding “English irony” despite having “lived in the country for a very long time, probably all their lives”. It’s not that I did not previously believe he was antisemitic – I did, and he is. What surprised me was that, notwithstanding the slightest of “Zionist” fig leaves, it spoke to a particular middle-class, snobbish antisemitism that I have never particularly associated with the radical left. The response took me aback too. It’s easy to become inured to the bottomless barrel of meetings with and support for…